The Apple fan-boys finally got to find out exactly what their Messiah has been doing for the last few months.

For almost a year, they've been hunched over their blurred firsts, endlessly muttering 'Steve, the tablet, Steve ... the taaaaaablet', to the consternation of all around them.

And now, here it is. The iPad. Gosh, it looks like an iPhone, but a whole lot bigger.

There's a lot more screen to scratch, and a lot fewer places to put the fucking thing when it starts to rain, or when a mugger begins to eye your new 'must-have' toy.

While, of course, the iPad will change the way we .. err ... tap shiny things in exasperation, there are some things it can't do:

* it can't be read in the bath, like a paperback;
* it can't be whipped out of a pocket to jot a quick note, like a notepad;
* it can't be folded up and read in one hand on a crowded train, like a newspaper;
* it can't take quick pictures, like every other mobile phone made since 2007
* it can't be replaced for 50 pence when you leave it on a bus, like an exercise book;
* it can't be held to your ear so you can speak to a loved one, like a phone;

and, naturally,

* it can't help but make you look a total twat, the very first time you whip it out in a bar;

Personally I think it sounds like an electronic sanitary towel, and that alone would be enough reason not to have one. Another is that I genuinely can't work out what I'd do with it (basically everything that CF said). Because we use Macs at work and home everyone who comes to our home thinks we must be massive Apple fans, especially from people who really are massive Apple fans. I'm tired of telling people that as clever as an iPhone is I don't use three quarters of the features on my old Nokia. I'm tired of telling people that I'm happy with the ancient iPod and the generic MP3 player and have no interest in getting one of the new ones. Thanks to Steve Jobs I'll now probably have to defend not buying a third product that I don't want - cheers for that, you cock knocker. Fucking yourself gently with a broken cricket bat... got an app for that have you? Oh, shame. Just stick to making the fucking computers, eh? And if you could possibly design your laptops to work in warm climates we'd be ever so grateful - despite the cooling fans both going like the clappers on hot summer days mine does a convincing impression of an incompetent suicide bomber's crotch.

I will honestly be very surprised if it takes off at all. They've invented a gap in the market that doesn't exist. People were happy (though I'm not quite sure why) to spend The Apple Tax on an iPhone because they need a phone, same with an MP3 player, they're nice to have. But who needs a tablet PC?

Bet it flops. It's all very well having Steve Jobs on a flashy stage with a load of fanbois (or as I suspect, Apple employees) ushered into the audience to whoop and cheer like fucktards at all the right (but still unimpressive) places. But when it actually comes down to people handing over their hard-earned for it, well, that's an entirely different matter. The iPhone had a market, I'm struggling to believe this will.